


i am of blood and of bones

by indefinissable



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Related, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Relationships, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-11 01:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7018804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indefinissable/pseuds/indefinissable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean left his car to Sam, but to Castiel he entrusted the thing most precious to him in all of Creation. Castiel does not treat the responsibility lightly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i am of blood and of bones

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the painful, grieving Sam/Cas we were robbed of at the end of the finale. As such, it pretends certain things in canon never happened. This can be read as gen, but pairings are heavily implied.

When it all ends, Sam and Castiel are left alone in the parking lot, squinting into the sunlight. Castiel offers to bear them back to the bunker, but Sam won’t leave the car, can’t abandon the one thing Dean would only ever trust him to protect.

Sam slides behind the wheel, flinches and grips it too tight when he starts the ignition and the opening chords of “Long, Long Way From Home” crackle through the tinny speakers. Castiel eases silently into the passenger seat and switches the stereo off. Sam lets out a long breath and guides the car onto the road.

They sit together quietly through the long hours back to the bunker.

+

Sam doesn’t pull into the garage. Instead, he parks on the side of the road, like he’s too tired to go the extra distance. Like he doesn’t plan on staying long. Sam gazes absently out the front windshield for a while before he blinks, opens the door, and steps out. When he puts the keys in his pocket he handles them gently, with reverence.

They go inside and Castiel says, “If you want to talk… I’m here if you need anything.”

Sam gives him a tight little smile. “Thanks Cas.” His voice is strained with false brightness. “But, uh, I’m beat. Think I’m just gonna head to bed.”

Castiel looks at Sam, catalogues the exhaustion in the hollows of his eyes, the creases at his forehead and the corners of his mouth, the inward curl of his shoulders. His hands are in his pockets. He is twisted and bent to his very core with the weight of duty and grief and long ages of pain. Castiel feels a matching ache in his own chest, Dean’s loss thrumming in his lungs like the wings of an injured bird. His last words – _Look out for Sammy_ – are holy orders burning through the molecules of Castiel’s body: a mission, a purpose.

Sam disappears into the sleeping quarters, walking slow and stiff. Castiel wants to remove the boots from Sam’s tired feet and wrap him in warm blankets, use his grace to send Sam into a rest free of the weight that haunts him, far too old for his young body to carry.

As much as he wants to obey Dean’s dying request, Castiel knows Sam wouldn’t allow it. Because of Lucifer. More so because Sam has only ever borne this pain alone.

+

Sam lies down on his bed, fully dressed on top of the covers, curls over on his side and draws his knees to his chest. His body feels utterly empty, a brittle shell of clay and bone with nothing inside but dry air. There’s pressure building in his head, pressing heavy into the spaces between his ribs, and he thinks he might crack and shatter and dissipate into the dark.

He stays that way for a long time, until he can move again. Until he has glued together enough of the rattling pieces of him to get back up and go to work.

+

When Sam emerges from his room, the bunker is filled with the warm, sweet aroma of baking.

Castiel is in the kitchen making cinnamon rolls. “I know you’re fond of them,” he says, and pours Sam a cup of coffee, black with a little sugar how he likes it. Sam looks worse than he did before, and Castiel knows he hasn’t slept.

Sam turns down the offer of food with a quiet, “Thanks. Not really hungry, though.” He takes a sip of his coffee. Then, “Cas, you don’t have to babysit me. I’ve done this before.”

Something blooms hot and sharp beneath Castiel’s breast. Sam has endured death and torment no human should have to bear, has been stabbed and shot and martyred and brought back a thousand times over. Castiel would do anything for him, would rebel against heaven and tear out his grace and give his life willingly. Yet he is helpless in the face of Sam’s grief, has no way to save him from his own mind.

“I know,” Castiel says. “But I’d like the company.”

Sam’s eyes go gentle with pity. “Yeah, Cas, of course.”

+

They fight.

Sam goes to the library and finds all the doors locked. He tries to leave the bunker but the entrance is sealed and warded. _Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid_ , Dean had said, and Castiel had made a promise.

Sam says, “Please,” and, “We can get him back, Cas. We have to get him back. Just let me get him back.”

Castiel says, “I’m sorry,” and, “This isn’t what Dean would want,” and, “He is in Heaven. God will have seen to it.”

It ends with Sam slicing his palm open to draw a banishing sigil. Castiel lurches forward to stop him, grips tight to Sam’s wrists and doesn’t yield.

They struggle briefly and go to their knees. Sam is incoherent. He has cut himself too deeply. Blood drips down his wrist, through Castiel’s fingers, pools slick and dark on the floor. Castiel speaks to Sam softly until his eyes clear and he stills.

+

Castiel heals Sam’s hand, then guides him up and through the bunker’s hallways.

Under the spray of a hot shower, some piece of Sam breaks loose. He tastes salt in the water trickling onto his lips. His hands shake and the shampoo bottle slips through his fingers when he tries to hold it, cracks against the wet tile.

Castiel, standing fully clothed next to him, bends down to retrieve it. He says, “May I?”

The gentle drag of Castiel’s fingers in his hair, working through the knots and grime, calms Sam’s shuddering breaths. Castiel hums quietly as he works, and the soothing notes of his voice send Sam to a quiet, floating place where everything goes soft around the edges. 

When he is satisfied that Sam is clean, Castiel shuts the water off and dries Sam with a fluffy towel. Then he leads Sam out of the bathroom and down the hall to his own room. He tucks Sam into clean sheets and smooths out the creases before settling on the edge of the bed.

He murmurs, “Let me help you sleep,” and Sam nods his silent permission.

Sam’s eyes are already drifting shut when Castiel touches two fingers to his forehead, but he finds the energy to grasp the fabric of Castiel’s sleeve. “Don’t go,” he whispers, and the words are slurred with exhaustion.

“Of course not,” Castiel vows, and Sam goes lax and quiet with sleep.

+

Sam is still sleeping almost a day later when Castiel steps outside the bunker for a breath of fresh air and finds Dean waiting there. He begins to draw his blade but Dean says “It’s me, Cas. Just me.”

Castiel feels it in the marrow of his grace. He throws his arms around Dean and holds him tight. Dean rubs at his back and some of the grief aching in Castiel’s insides begins to uncoil. When he pulls away, Dean takes hold of Castiel’s hand.

 Dean looks half-dead on his feet, pale and exhausted, a worrying tightness around his eyes and mouth. He says, “Sam.”

“He is safe,” Castiel says. “Asleep, for the moment.”

Castiel is rewarded with a soft, apologetic, “Thank you.”

He brings Dean down the stairs and into the kitchen, plies him with cinnamon rolls and coffee while Dean fills him in on God and Amara and how he was sure he had died when he saw his mother. Castiel bows his head and nods when Dean tells him that his Father is gone again, a new wave of sorrow rolling over him.

Dean touches his shoulder and says, “Hey. We’ll be okay. We just gotta stick together.”

+

Sam comes into the kitchen, still half-asleep, rubbing his eyes and stretching out his sore neck. He says, “Coffee? Smells good,” and then looks up.

Several things happen at once. Sam grabs for his gun and levels it between his brother’s eyes. Dean says “Sammy,” his voice cracked with guilt and longing. Castiel holds out a hand and says, firmly, “Sam. It’s him.”

Everything falls still. Sam’s hand drops abruptly to his side and he stands stiffly, not looking at Dean. He shakes his head and takes several long, uneven breaths.

When it becomes clear Sam isn’t going to move, Dean gets up, approaches him slowly like he might a spooked animal. Sam flinches when Dean touches his hand, but lets him pull the weapon from his loose grasp. Dean deposits the gun on the counter and then pulls Sam in tight, going up on his tiptoes and gripping the back of his neck.

“I’m so sorry, Sammy,” he says.

Sam goes abruptly limp, a puppet with cut strings. Dean is there to catch him. Sam buries his face in his brother’s shoulder, grasps the back of his shirt until his knuckles turn white. He gasps for air, says, “I can’t. You. Fuck, you can’t just make me do this again.”

Dean presses his face into Sam’s hair, says, “Sorry. Sorry.”

Looking at them makes Castiel ache sharp and bright, their pain and relief raw and smarting and too vast for mere bone and blood. They grasp at each other like drowning men.

Sam lifts his head from Dean’s shoulder and says, “Cas.” He untangles one of his hands from Dean’s shirt and holds it out: an invitation. Castiel steps forward and takes Sam’s hand. Dean unhooks an arm from around his brother’s bony back and draws Castiel in. They stay that way for a long time.

+

Later, when Dean’s eyes start to drift shut and he has trouble carrying a conversation, Castiel and Sam take him between them and lead him to his bed. There, they share breath and space and sound with one another. Castiel cherishes the physical closeness. His grace thrums contentedly and threads through the weave of their tangled limbs, completing the circle of their bodies.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr [@withthedemonblood](http://www.withthedemonblood.tumblr.com).


End file.
